Rocket Lab poised to change the space industry

Aerospace company Rocket Lab is developing a
world-first launch vehicle to deliver satellites into orbit
cheaper and faster than ever before.

29 July
2014, Auckland: Rocket Lab is revolutionising the
global space industry with the creation of a light-weight,
cost-effective rocket, making it easier for companies to
launch small satellites into orbit.

Rocket Lab is building
a world-first carbon-composite launch vehicle, named
Electron, at its Auckland facility to reduce the
price of delivering a satellite into orbit. At a price of
less than $5 million USD, this represents a drastic cost
reduction compared to existing dedicated launch
services[1].

The lead-time for businesses to launch a
satellite will also be reduced from years[2] to weeks
through vertical integration with Rocket Lab’s private
launch facility. Rocket Lab has attracted strong commercial
demand for its service with commitments for its first 30
launches.

Electron is 18m in length, 1m diameter
and will weigh more than 10 tonnes. This will be the first
vehicle of its class capable of delivering payloads up to
100kg into low Earth orbits (LEO).[3]

New Zealander Peter
Beck founded the company in 2007 with a vision of
eliminating the commercial barriers to space.

He says that
rockets have remained prohibitively large and expensive,
despite the trend for satellites to become smaller, more
capable and affordable. The deficit in launch systems
creates a severe barrier for commercial ventures and for the
emerging satellite constellation markets.

“The
innovation behind Electron will release the
limitations on launching small satellites. Our vision at
Rocket Lab is to make space commercially viable and more
accessible than ever before, doing what the Ford Model T did
for consumer automobiles. This technology will really open
space for business.

“Along with benefits for commercial
enterprises, cheaper and faster space access has the
potential to lead to more accurate weather prediction,
global high speed Internet access, as well as real-time
monitoring of the impacts of human development,” says
Beck.

Beck says geographically, New Zealand is in an ideal
launch position for a variety of different types of orbits
and plans are underway to build a space port on home
soil.

“This will bring an innovative and exciting new
industry to New Zealand with economic benefits at both a
regional and national level. We’re currently considering a
shortlist of regions as potential locations for a space port
and encourage any region interested to get in touch with us
now,” says Beck.

Vinod Khosla, founder of
Khosla Ventures, says it is exciting to see to the
technology and innovation coming out of Rocket
Lab.

“Opening up access to space will be one of the
fundamental developments of our time. We are very excited
about our investment in Rocket Lab, which represents
technology inventions to help emerge a whole new generation
of commercial opportunities by having efficient and cost
effective access to space,” says Khosla.

CEO of Schafer Corporation and previous
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin says that Rocket Lab’s
work could be an important game changer in the space
industry and that its innovative design approach offers a
really attractive path to lower cost access to
space.

“We’re all working towards a future where space
becomes more accessible and Rocket Lab’s latest innovation
is an important step in making that happen,” says
Griffin.

Rocket
Lab is an aerospace company founded in 2007 by New
Zealander, Peter Beck. The company is focused on delivering
innovative, high quality technologies to the space
industry.

Rocket Lab was created to cater to the growing
requirement within the international market for fast, low
cost methods of delivering payloads to space. Since
inception, the company has successfully developed a number
of leading rocket-based systems, from sounding rockets
through to new advanced propulsion technologies.

Rocket
Lab is an American company with a subsidiary and head office
in Auckland, New Zealand.

Rocket Lab was the first private
company to reach space in the southern hemisphere in 2009
with its Atea 1 suborbital sounding rocket. Following this
success the company won contracts with aerospace giants
Lockheed Martin, DARPA and Aeroject
Rocket-dyne.

________________________________________[1]
The average price of a dedicated launch service is $133
million (USD). Source: Launces 2014: A Review of 2013
Launches and Payloads by The Tauri Group.

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